Godammit, I’m Mad!

Moss is a design store with a great online shop full of stuff to drool over or laugh at or both. I love this necklace by Katja Prins, called Bound by Blood.  It “represents prayer necklaces from differing religions, and is stained in red to represent the blood that has been shed in the name of religion.” Amen.

What I really want from Moss is this set of exquisite dolls, called “les bebes du monde.” In fact, I need them.  Only three months till my birthday!

Now, this is hair! Do you love it or do you love it!

I believe these hair sculptures are the work of Nagi Noda. I hope Amy has seen these.

Last night, the entire Sister Wolf family got off our asses and went to see the Dresden Dolls perform at the Wiltern. The Sons were intent on standing right by the stage, and did so.

The Husband and I chose to take one of the few tables in the back of the theater, the better to have a drink and sit our two asses back down. It’s not like I can’t stand up for hours and scream my head off if I want to, but last night I didn’t want to, and here’s why:  Because god in his infinite wisdom wanted to let me cast my eyes upon Morrissey, who stood just a few feet away from me!

If you don’t revere Morrissey, it may be due to your lack of cultural literacy, i.e. you haven’t heard his masterpiece, “I Know It’s Over.”  I admit that until I heard it, I just thought of Morrissey as an interesting songwriter with an arresting persona.

Then, I heard Jeff Buckley’s version of I Know It’s Over, and my heart nearly imploded from its beauty and intensity.  It is one of the most exquisitely poetic songs of all time. You can read the lyrics here.

So there was Morrissey, but one can hardly go up to him and bother him when his whole deal is about being alone and asexual. For an asexual man, he is pretty damn unbelievably attractive.

So, shit, I now wish I could have taken a photo or kissed the hem of his robe. But he’ll always be there when I close my eyes.

The Dresden Dolls were terrific, and they basked in the love of their hardcore fans, who tended toward the Disenfranchised…..the strange, the fat, the emaciated, the ambiguously gendered and of course, the Queer. God bless them every one, and Jeff Buckley too, may his soul rest in peace.

I was intrigued by a review in the Los Angeles TImes of Matthew Barney’s latest performance piece, called REN.  The two hour event took place in a car lot, and featured the destruction of a 1967 Chrysler Imperial.

The car was dragged by “four dozen dirt-smeared laborers” into a showroom, where it was smashed by a backhoe. The shattered glass injured three people in the audience, but hey, they came to see Art and they got it!

After the paramedics left, the audience was ushered into a fake tomb where Lila Downs sang to a corpse and - this is my favorite part - “a menstrual shroud was extracted from the loins of a masked nude woman.”

Is Matthew Barney a fucking genius or what?!

If you’re not convinced, how about this: Just last month in New York, Barney used another Chrysler to fascinate a crowd of 200, wearing a dog on his head. A legless athlete in a silver ballgown and a marching band in terrorist masks were there to bring Barney’s vision to life, as were a pair of semi-nude girls who peed in an arc onto the floor. Then a bull was led over to the Chrysler but refused to mount it.

I’m not too good as symbolism, but I think it’s obvious that the bull was a witty reference to shit. Right?

Poor Bjork!

For a long time, I’ve been thinking about introducing some of my more obscure Objects of Hatred, for anyone interested in post-graduate Hating. I’m talking about raising the bar for those who seek more people to hate besides Chloe Sevigny or Selma Blair. That kind of hating is child’s play, after all. Everyone hates those two, it doesn’t take any brains or discernment.

My first Object of Hatred in this advanced curriculum is the one and only horror known as Liz Goldwyn. She is the granddaughter of film mogul Samuel Goldwyn and therefore has a huge trust-fund. She has used her buying power to divest eBay and the auction houses of all the best vintage gowns on the market.

So unrelenting is her hunger for more vintage finery that she courted some aging burlesque artists in order to get to their priceless spangled costumes. In her documentary about them, she pretends to have some kind of sociological interest in stripping. What she really wants is to get her hands on the clothes. The best part of the documentary is when a savvy old stripper tells her to forget about getting any of her outfits. She sees right through the horrible greed and manipulation.

I hated Liz Goldwyn before the documentary and I hate her each time I see her name. She recently “sourced” some crappy vintage sweater clips for the shop Opening Ceremony in Los Angeles. When I saw them, I sneered to the sales person, “Did you know you can get these at the VIntage Fashion Expo for around ten or fifteen dollars?” Liz has priced them at something outrageous but I’ve forgotten the figure.

Now to make matters worse, I’ve come across a video clip of Liz visiting the guest house of Tony Duquette, a brilliantly over-the-top designer whose close friend Hutton Wilkinson manages the Duquette estate. If you watch the video, you can see how much Liz wants to keep the jewelry Wilkinson shows her.

She has ‘designed’ her own jewelry for Barneys, and it looks like Duquette-on-a-budget. I fucking hate her. Too much money in the hands of an acquisitive narcissistic bitch like Liz Goldwyn makes the world a tiny bit worse for the rest of us. She has plundered the earth’s finite stores of Vintage treasures, and now she’s messing with Tony Duquette.

I hate Liz Goldwyn and now you can, too!

This is a clip from an episode of This American Life, currently playing on Showtime. It’s called ‘Never gotten a break’ and it’s the story of a young man with a degenerative muscular disease that leaves him nearly paralyzed and connected to breathing tubes. We meet Mike at age 27.

I watched the show with my husband, both of us transfixed in horror at Mike’s situation. At this point, Mike is no longer able to speak and uses a cursor to laboriously type out his thoughts. We noticed that Mike had a pierced eyebrow and wore purple nail polish. He literally coudn’t do anything, but he still wanted to effect an ‘alternative’ style.

We were even more flabbergasted when we learned that Mike has a girlfriend. I guess she answered an ad he placed online. So here’s this guy, for all intents a vegetable, but he has a girlfriend! It was fascinating. Then our TV froze and we couldn’t watch the end of the episode. For awhile, I whined to my husband, “Get me the cripple back!” but it couldn’t be done.

Then last night we were able to see the rest of Mike’s story. His girlfriend broke up with him and he became deeply depressed. He didn’t know if it was worthwhile to keep living. He nearly became addicted to pain killers but his mother manged to wean him off of them.

Then, Mike agreed to take out his breathing tube so that he could speak for a minute or two. With great difficulty, Mike answered a question. Suddenly, I saw that Mike was a person, not a thing. He seemed to have a nice personality….a cool guy, in fact. He told his girlfriend, who had come back to him, that he loved her.

I was devastated. It was easy to mock him when he wasn’t a real person. Now I see that this guy has lived his life with more courage and determination than I can even imagine. He is a fucking hero of the first order. Try to see this piece and renew your sense of humility, gratitude and wonder.

Hello Icelanders! I wanted to reach out to you guys, since my google tracker thingy reveals that none of you visit me here at Godammit.com.  I love Bjork, especially her swan dress by that designer with the funny name. I love her full eyebrows and her website is amazing. I love that her boyfriend is that nutcase Matthew Barney, who made a 12 hour film about his testicles.

I also love Sigur Ros! Their sound is so weird and haunting! Is everything in Iceland weird and haunting, actually? Let me know!

Not from Iceland but still of interest, take a look at these leather shorts by Camilla Staerk. I could never wear them and yet I feel deprived by not having them. Go and buy them at Oak, but then I’ll be mad at you.

Yes, more penis jewelry! This ring comes in silver or gold. Check it out here, where you can find lots of other noteworthy conceptual jewelry.

Not a penis but still covetable, this bracelet by Deadly Ponies is available here.

Either piece would make a nice gift for Mother’s Day!

But not at my house! I woke up to a wonderful gift from my Webmaster…a 2-CD recording of Prince’s performance at Coachella last week. Not only a high quality recording but a track list and everything.

You know how fussy Prince is about copyright infringement, and I don’t blame him, as long as I can still get what I want. I have loved the Little Prince since the first time I heard “Dirty Mind,” many light-years ago. Once, a Prince video from that era was playing on my sister’s TV, and her teenage son ran from the room, shrieking “That’s gay, that’s gay!” His terror only confirmed the rebellious, uninhibited brilliance that is Prince.

Prince, don’t be mad! Remember how we paid a thousand bucks to see you in Vegas? And you didn’t come over to sit in my lap? Now we’re even!

Anyway, I’m listening to the concert as I write this. His version of “Creep” is beyond amazing. Try to get your own Webmaster to burn you a copy.

A long time ago, but not long enough, I met a handsome Cuban artist at a housewarming party. I had just read about the artist in the Los Angeles Times, and I recognized him, which gave him quite a thrill. I was mad at my then-boyfriend, so I encouraged the attention of the handsome artist, who licked the palm of my hand and asked for my phone number.

The following evening, we went out to dinner. He was wearing a white t-shirt. He began a long soliloquy about his search for the perfect white t-shirt. I realized to my horror that he was an idiot. He discussed his t-shirt obsession without a hint of irony or self-consciousness. I could barely eat. The date ended in a gruesome exchange of minor sexual favors and I was not surprised to discover that his paintings were all dominated by a giant phallus. If only I could remember his name!

Anyway, I myself love to find a nice white t-shirt. It’s hard to find one with the right fit and fabric. I prefer a classic crew neck and a soft, thin, stretchy cotton. So far, the closest I’ve come to perfection is the James Perse basic short-sleeve crew and the same style by Zooey. If there’s anything better, I want to know about it! I’d also like to remember that Cuban idiot’s name, but nothing will retrieve it.